Bilstein SNAP RING Question?

Still puzzles me how a tiny snap ring can hold up X amount of lbs of force to keep the spring compressed in the assembly.

A snap ring failure at hwy speeds would be catastrophic. Can someone help me understand how this is engineered?

 

Well. I’ve never heard of a snap ring failure yet. Not saying it doesn’t happen but I bet hundreds of trucks are running them on here. I thought the same thing. I’ve romped my truck pretty hard off-road. If that won’t break’er, I doubt you’ll ever break one on the paved highway.

 

Except if you drive in New York.

 

That is true.

 

I had a failure a few months ago as soon as the tech pulled mine off the rack. Bilstein would not warranty it. Said it was "incorrectly installed" and I had to buy another shock. As soon as these wear out, I'll go to a Toytech kit. It's hard to support a company that would not stand behind their product. It wouldn't have been any skin off their nose to warranty it but they lost a customer for life!

 

The perch that the spring is supported by, encapsulates the snap ring. It has a machined home for the seated snap ring to rest in and fully surrounds the snap, not allowing it to open or move. If that lower perch isn’t seated over the snap ring, I could see it putting excessive pressure on part of the snap ring, and failing or coming out of the groove

 

If installed correctly the perch encapsulates the ring so it doesn't move, the ring is what, 1/16" thick and goes around a 2.25" shock body, if you add that up its something like 0.25" cross section of steel that would have to shear for it to fail. A shear strength of 40,000 psi for typical steel.

I'm just throwing typical numbers out there I'm sure their engineers did all the calculations.

 

I've heard this a few times. One of mine is leaking and I didn't even bother contacting them. Decided to give Sachs a try since I've already got OME springs and had them on the lowest perch.

 

Install on this item is almost a "no brainer."

I cant imagine anyone with any amount of IQ can screw up getting the ring in the grove. Its kinda common sense.

With that said, I have seen several posts, not only for Tundras, but tacomas, nissans, etc.. that had failures. I understand the statics are low compare to whats out BUT it seems to happen more often than people want to believe.

If Bilstein's answer to a failure is that "installation wasn't correct" thats very concerning especially for families who put little kids in the vehicles.

 

Great point!! Going to go tell my wife this. Looks like it’s time for new UCAs and some Kings!

 

That’s why I like to do all my own work.

The goober installing it doesn’t give two shets about you or your family.

 

I personally have never seen a failure happen to anyone I know or trucks that come in the dealer. But I’ve seen the photos of the aftermath of ones that tech installed the snap ring incorrectly (how they do it I’ll never know.)

 

LOL that not what I meant either. But not a bad way to convince your wife for the upgrades

 

Wow, that sucks, especially since it failed immediately after coming off the rack. So when you say it failed, you mean to say the snap ring broke? Do you have pics of it?

 

I’m curious. How was it installed incorrectly? I assembled mine on my own using a shop spring compressor. I could only figure out one way to put those snap rings on, though.

 

There's tons and tons of cases of the spring perch installed upside down so the snap ring can deflect and essentially fall out of the groove. You'd be surprised how many people install it incorrectly. Without photos of the installation I wouldn't be surprised for a second your "all knowing 10 year master Toyota tech" may have installed something so simple incorrectly.

 

I can’t figure out how they do it. But my guess it’s not fully in the groove at a slight angle

 

I've watched several videos on people moving the snap ring from groove to groove. There is no way it can be seated incorrectly because the perch wont stay on. The ring literally snaps into place. Its pretty much fool proof. I do not believe for a second that it is an installation error, at least not on the snap ring part. But some of these aftermath photos of the ring breaking and the entire spring just falls down. That is scary at high speeds.

 

everyone ive seen photos of the clips bent in a way that suggests it wasnt 100% in the groove or the perch was upsidedown.
ive seen 5100s bend at the bottom of the strut on 2nd gen tacos but the perch was fine.. i dont think theres anything to worry about unless you live in the rust belt where the snap ring could become compromised by the rot that may occur.

 

Ah, the spring perch. I didn’t think about that, but yeah, that makes sense.